21 Savage Somehow Made A Good Album

"I love all people." That's something that 21 Savage wrote on Twitter on Christmas Day. This was telling. 21 Savage came to fame by cannily broadcasting the idea that he loved no people, least of all himself. He was a muttering wraith, promising death to anyone who might say a sideways word about him. But that was then. With those early insurgent records, 21 Savage got himself noticed. He became popular. He achieved some level of rap stardom. And then he had to take the necessary steps to maintain that rap stardom, which is a much harder thing to do.

Here's the context for the "love all people" thing: 21 Savage had just released his i am > i was album. On a song called "asmr," he'd rapped this line: "We been getting that Jewish money, everything is Kosher." LeBron James had quoted that lyric in an Instagram caption. He had then apologized for quoting that lyric. And so 21 Savage then had to apologize. In response to that mini-PR storm, he wrote that "the Jewish people I know are very wise with there money," a line that's slightly more endearing because we know that a publicist didn't write it for Savage. (Or if it was a publicist, then it was a publicist who does not know the difference between there and their.)